Women targeted in vile sex games by male students

Exclusive: O-Week manual of horrors1:17

TheRedZone continues to unearth new materials that put university culture under a harsh light. An O-Week manual has been found containing a horrifying insight into what orientation week is really like for first years at University of Adelaide.

GRAPHIC photos and screenshots have emerged from the elite St John’s College at the University of Sydney, of male students rating first-year fresher girls who they live with on how “f***able” they are and bragging about their sexual exploits over them.

In an annual tradition known as “Fresher Five”, the older male students at St John’s congregate in March to rank the first year female students on their attractiveness and select the hottest Fresher Five. News.com.au understands this tradition is ongoing.

A screenshot of the Facebook group organising a previous Fresher Five event is called “Prime cuts and minute steaks”. The opening post reads: ‘Lads, gents and lords, fellas, ***ts and boarz, Judgement day is nigh …. It’s time to deliberate on fresher 5. With 60 [fresher girls] to consider, there’s plenty of fish in the sea but someone’s gotta sort the salmon from the carp.”

The name of the group organising the event was changed to ‘Prime cuts and minute steaks’.Source:Supplied

News.com.au has spoken to a current female student who was selected in a recent Fresher 5 round.

“I was one of them on the list and have never felt like such a piece of meat in my life ... I honestly had this huge boy grip me in a hug and whisper in my ear, ‘You were in Fresher Five, watch out tonight.”

In another annual ritual called “The Purge”, St John’s College students are encouraged to post all embarrassing and sexual photos of each other on their closed Facebook group.

The Purge lasts for 24 hours, and students have carte blanche to post incredibly graphic and demeaning sexual content to humiliate their peers.

The Purge last took place in November 2017 and news.com.au has obtained screenshots from both the 2016 and 2017 Purge events.

Some of the screenshots are too graphic to publish, but others include images of boys participating in a secret sex-bragging game called “Heavyweight”, where they have sent Snapchat selfies to a group of other male students, while holding up the bra or panties of St John’s girls who they had allegedly just had sex with. The photos are captioned things like, “The reigning heavyweight champion” or simply “Heavy weight”.

Many of the photos posted in ‘The Purge’ are too graphic to publish.Source:Supplied

The screenshots show male students holding up bras of female students they claim to have had sex with.Source:Supplied

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to news.com.au, female students have revealed other sickening and disturbing practices including:

An annual tradition held at the college AGM, where male students with red hair set their pubic hair on fire in front of their peers. Whichever student can tolerate the “flaming pubes” the longest is appointed the “Meniscus Master”. (Meniscus is the college word for cordial, and the cordial master is permitted to pour jugs of cordial over the heads of students found to be in breach of petty college rules, such as which hand they are allowed to drink out of.)

In 2016, as part of a hazing ritual, the male and female fresher students were locked in the communal bathroom. Vats of dead, rotting fish were then thrown on them.

Students have also detailed the hazing practices which occur during O-Week, including being forced to sit cross-legged on the filthy ground in the college bar, The An Dail, for hours on end. Anyone caught talking would be yelled at and forced to scull alcohol.

In 2017, in a tradition known as Green Goblin, younger male students were selected by older students who then fed them alcohol and painted them green. The “goblins” then returned to college where they were ordered to bash down the doors of female students. One female student, who was standing on the other side of her bedroom door, was rushed to hospital after the door split her forehead open. (A number of the boys responsible are now senior students at the college.)

In another tradition known as “Soap box” the male students who play touch rugby league relay sexual stories, sometimes physically enacting them. The players take a knee in front of the other team players and start their story with the line “So there I was …” before they regale the team with details of their sexual escapades.

Female students say that some male students regularly trash the college, including leaving faeces on the floor in the showers, or in one case, outside a girl’s bedroom. They have also complained of a practice called “door knocking” where drunk male students insistently knock on their door at 3am trying to gain access for sex.

In yet another tradition, the female students are referred to as JETS which stands for “Just Excuse The Slag”. The boys routinely hold “No Jet’s Friday” where they refuse to speak to or make eye contact with the female students. In 2017, the male freshers also reportedly stacked the student elections, upvoting the men and down-voting all women, ensuring the top leadership positions all went to men.

In response, female students have now banded together to oppose the deeply ingrained sexism of some male students. The female students are now demanding change and have formed an Equality Committee to advocate for reform.

The college first became coeducation in 2001 but female students say that the sexism is still pervasive, and that even before Orientation week the older students will “Facebook lurk” the incoming female students to rate their attractiveness and give them “Fresher names”.

Female students are pushing back against the sexist traditions.Source:Supplied

The rector of St John’s college has issued a statement saying: “If any student proposing to come to St John’s thinks that behaviour of the sort alleged is acceptable, they need to think again because this kind of behaviour is not accepted at St John’s College.

“The college is deeply concerned by the claims which have been made. The College takes any allegation of this sort very seriously … The College encourages reporting of any inappropriate behaviour.”

In 2012, a female fresher student at St John’s College was rushed to hospital during Orientation week, after she was found walking forwards — not backwards — in the Polding wing. As “punishment” she was surrounded by a group of male students and forced to drink a dangerous concoction of shampoo, alcohol, tabasco sauce and dog food. The student, who was allergic to alcohol, was rushed to hospital, where she almost died.

A post announcing the beginning of the 2016 ‘Purge’.Source:Supplied

An Equality Committee has been formed to push back against the ingrained sexist attitudes of some of the male students.Source:Supplied

Thirty-three students were suspended over the matter but many later returned, taking up leadership positions for the following year. They were dubbed “the untouchables” and made T-shirts to celebrate. (The T-shirts featured an eagle — the college logo — vomiting)

The current rector, who was not present during those events, said during the last five years: “St John’s College has worked with its students to reform student culture and behaviour, and throughout 2017 worked with Elizabeth Broderick’s team on a major student culture project. Cultural renewal remains an ongoing priority of the College.”

Next week is Orientation week at the University of Sydney. The Broderick review referred to above found that this is the most dangerous week of the year for college students in terms of sexual assault, and that one in eight attempted or completed rapes at the University of Sydney colleges happen during a single week of the year — O week. It has been labelled The Red Zone by student activists.

Nina Funnell is an ambassador for End Rape On Campus Australia and the author of The Red Zone Report. She is a Walkley award-winning investigative journalist and is running news.com.au’s exclusive investigation into college culture.